Advent: The Wonder of the Incarnation

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Amen.

Amen.

Let's pray together.

Well, the Bible tells us that all your promises are yes and amen in Jesus.

And because of who you are and how you live, Jesus, we're just here to acknowledge that you are worthy.

There's nothing that you're not worthy of.

We also want to acknowledge, like my little friend said earlier when our service began, it's dark in here.

After the year that we had, God, it's easy to look around the world and say, man, it's dark in here.

But yet we also got to remember in Isaiah 9, thousands of years ago, you said, the people dwelling in deep darkness on them, a light has shown.

We didn't climb into the brightness of your being.

You came down, God, into the darkness of our depravity, took on flesh, moved into the neighborhood, and said, What's for dinner?

We're not comfortable with a God that is that personal.

And yet you are.

You incarnated, you took on flesh and you stayed.

You underpromised and over-delivered in a world full of people that over-promised and under-delivered.

That is why every person in this room should consider the claims of Christianity for their lives.

And so, Lord, we're humbled by all of that.

Yes, it is dark in here.

But for many of us, this light is dawned in us.

And now we have the responsible privilege of passing that light, passing that peace, living in such a way that reminds people in a panic-stricken uh culture in which we live.

Hey, there's a there's a reality, there's a truth you can look to that will sustain you in the darkest of days.

And so, Lord, just take a few moments and remind us of that tonight.

We pray in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

You could have a seat.

You could have a seat.

I want to talk to you just for a few moments as we wrap up our Advent services here on the culmination on Christmas Eve.

I want to talk to you about the wonder of the atonement.

The wonder of the atone, I mean, excuse me, of the incarnation, not the atonement.

That's Good Friday.

Uh the wonder, uh, got ahead of myself there.

Uh the wonder of the incarnation.

Now, let me just acknowledge something.

I know that we preachers can use words, and real people are kind of like, what does that mean?

So when I say the word incarnation, if you know what I mean, say amen.

There's some of you that do, and some of you just faked it right there, okay?

Some of you are just like, okay, yeah, incarnation, whatever.

Uh here's here's a definition of the incarnation that I got out of a book that was about that thick.

It says this the incarnation is the mystery in which the Son of God assumed human nature or became flesh to accomplish salvation.

Does that help you understand it better?

Say amen.

Down in volume, it's kind of like that wasn't helpful at all.

That's why I don't read those books that you preachers read, okay?

Uh, what if I described, now listen, parents, if you have to just quietly slip your hand over your kid's mouth and keep it there, that's okay.

No one will say anything.

Just kidding.

If you're visiting, that's a joke.

Anyway, uh, what if I described it like this?

The incarnation is this is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, left the sanctity of heaven and he came to the darkness of earth, hurtling like a meat meteor, God concarny, breaking through the stratosphere, the atmosphere, the hemisphere, and he crashes down through the womb of a virgin in a manger.

He he comes as a baby, he grows up, and his life and ministry was basically him taking the axe and knocking a hole in the door of your heart, sticking his head in, and kind of going, here's Jesus.

That's the incarnation.

Do you understand that?

Say amen.

Let's stand for the benediction.

My work here is done.

That is the incarnation.

This is what it means that because see, if we're not careful in Christianity, it in especially around Christmas time, it's more sentimental than it's principled.

And a very principled reality took place called the incarnation.

And I just want to shine some light on it for 11 minutes and say, don't miss the wonder of this before you go to bed tonight.

I don't care who you are or how you are.

I don't care if you're sitting here rolling your eyes like my parents made me come to this.

I do not want to be here.

I just want to say to you that Jesus Christ came to this because he wanted to be here.

Not this service, but this earth, this planet, this cosmos.

He sat down and said, I'm here, took on flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood, John tells us.

Matter of fact, I want to read from John chapter 1, verse 14.

John 1:14

He says, And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory.

Glory is the only, uh, is the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John bore witness about him and cried out, This was he of whom is said, He who comes after me ranks before me because he was before me.

For from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.

For the law was given through Moses.

Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

No one has ever seen God, the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.

The incarnation is God's way of saying, I don't want you to get it wrong, I don't want you to get it second or third hand.

I'm going to reveal myself to you in the life, ministry, being, and person of Jesus Christ.

This is the incarnation.

And why is that a big deal?

Why do you talk about the wonder of that?

Let me just tick off a few things for you to think about tonight.

Number one, the incarnation is destruction and construction.

It is destruction and construction.

John tells us in the epistle of 1 John the reason the Son of God appeared is to destroy the devil's works.

That means that sin no longer has power over you.

You do not have to go another day in the clutches of addiction or dependence or any form of that, because the reason that Jesus takes on flesh and comes into the world that incarnates into a being that we can look at and go, we have seen we have seen the beloved of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

He does that to destroy the devil's works so you can be free.

But secondly, also so you can be involved.

It's not just destruction, it's construction.

He comes to announce the kingdom.

One of the first things Jesus said is, repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.

Oh, a whole new way of living and relating.

Jesus comes to announce his kingdom.

He says it's going to get bigger and bigger and bigger.

It's not going to depend on people voting or voting integrity or voter fraud.

Have you heard enough about voter fraud lately?

See, this is a king that men did not elect and therefore they cannot dethrone.

And so that the incarnation is about destruction, but it's also about construction.

You can be free from your sin, but you also can be involved in something that's bigger and better than anything you've ever been a part of.

You got to ask yourself, do I want to spend my life or do I want to invest my life?

Second thing about the incarnation is its comfort and its threat.

The Bible uses comforting language like this.

In Matthew 11, Jesus said this.

He said, Come to me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and you'll find rest for your souls.

Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am gentle and humble in heart.

He also says in Isaiah, he says, Comfort all those who mourn in Zion.

It's comfort.

Sometimes you read things in the Bible, it's just like, oh man, that's like a heated throw on high, sitting on the couch, chilling out and binge watching Netflix.

And then it's threat.

You say, What do you mean it's threat?

It's threat to all the kingdoms of the world and their little man-sized leaders.

This is why, and I say this in a way that adults can get it, this is why Herod commits infanticide.

It's because he's threatened.

He knows there's a king been born.

He doesn't know where he is.

Otherwise, he would dispense Syltim 6 to take care of him, but he can't.

And so he says, I'll just do away with all of them.

Why?

Because the incarnation is comfort and it's threat.

The man, the most powerful man in the world, could not do anything about the Son of God taking on flesh and being born.

The third thing about the incarnation is that it's promise and its fulfillment.

It's promise and its fulfillment.

What do you mean?

Way back in the Old Testament book of Isaiah.

And not only in Isaiah, but in all the books of the Old Testament, promises were made.

The Bible calls them prophecies.

Over 300 of them applied to the birth, life, death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Okay?

And so if the Bible was afraid of its integrity or its authority or authenticity, why would it put itself out there and say, these things are going to happen?

The only thing that doesn't have to happen to invalidate the Bible is any one of them.

And yet the Bible said these things are going to happen, and they happened.

Just the way the Bible said they would.

In the book of Isaiah, when I say it's promise and fulfillment, Isaiah chapter 61, he records these words.

Isaiah 61 · chapter mention

Thousands of years before Jesus comes, he says, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of the vengeance of our God to comfort all who mourn.

This is the promise.

He said, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me.

This is a person talking way back in the Old Testament.

Promise.

Fulfillment.

Luke chapter 4.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

Jesus is early in his ministry.

He goes to the temple.

The Bible says, as was his custom.

In other words, Jesus went to church.

How would you like to go to church with Jesus?

Jesus, I was out last Sunday because my grandma died.

You and I both know you're lying.

Don't do that again.

Jesus goes to the temple as was his custom.

He picks up the scroll of Isaiah, he unfolds it, he starts to read.

And guess what he reads?

He reads Isaiah 61.

And then all these promises that have been made, he sets it down, and before he sits down, he says to the people there, Today this has been fulfilled in your hearing.

In other words, everything that you've heard, told about, and promised stands before you now in bodily form.

Because the incarnation is both promise and its fulfillment.

Here's the fourth thing about the incarnation: it's certainty, not doubt.

It's certainty, not doubt.

What do you mean?

Religion is man using uncertain means to reach up and appease this unknown deity in ways that we're not really sure if they work or not.

We kind of hope they are.

They make us feel better for a little bit, do some rituals, go through some, some, some, some, some man-made rules.

We feel better, but we're not quite certain.

We have this gnawing hole in us that says, what if there's more to life than what I'm believing or what I'm agreeing with?

Christianity is the one true God who came, accomplished a particular purpose for the benefit of humanity.

And because of this, we don't have to strive or seek to accomplish or achieve anything.

But what we do have to do is that we do have to believe in God's one and only Son and what He accomplished in our place and on our behalf.

And before you go to bed tonight, you have to ask yourself, do I believe this?

Or do you just think I've outgrown that my parents pushed that on me when I was a kid?

I'm not a kid anymore.

You think this is just for kids?

This is for the adult that's got it twisted and got out the reservation a long time ago and doesn't know how to get back.

Who would say, I'm the person dwelling in deep darkness?

The incarnation says that God comes to you.

You don't have to try to get up to him.

He comes down to you.

This is what distinguishes Christianity from every other world religion.

It is the only religion in the world where their deity comes down to them.

They don't work up to him.

God, the incarnations, humbling, incredible.

And God basically saying, I'm available.

I'll just point to verse 18 of John 1.

He says, This no one has ever seen God.

The only God.

Now stop right there.

The Bible makes two big statements right there.

No one's ever seen God.

The only God.

Now there's one God and no one's ever seen him.

And yet, look what God does.

This is the incarnation who is at the Father's side.

He has made him known.

He says, now this is God saying to the world that Jesus is also God.

Jesus is my son.

He's not just a prophet or a good teacher.

He said, Well, how do you know that?

Think for just a minute.

I know it's Christmas Eve.

I know you got business to take care of, things to assemble a little bit later, but hear this.

No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the Father's side.

Now, if God is at the Father's side, how could God be talking about God the Father?

He's talking about his Son, Jesus.

And he says, He God has made him known.

See, the incarnation is certainty.

It's not doubt.

God sent his son into the world so that through him the world could be saved.

So through him we could have certainty to build and bank and base our lives on.

This is what happens in the incarnation.

Here's the last thing about the wonder of the incarnation.

The incarnation is constant.

It's not temporary.

It's constant.

It's not temporary.

It's not something that just kind of happens and well that that made me feel good for a couple days, but it wore off.

One of the things all through the Bible is God's presence.

All through the Bible.

He says to his disciples, He says, I'll never leave you nor forsake you.

Lo, I'm with you always, even to the ends of the earth.

John 14, Jesus is getting ready to ascend back into heaven.

He's finished his earthly mission.

And he says, I've got to go so that the comforter, the paraclete, the Holy Spirit, can come.

And he'll be with you always and he'll lead you into all truth.

And so in the incarnation, God initiates a process of presence which will never ever go away.

It will always be here.

It will always be constant, not temporary.

Here's why.

Because God is constant.

God's not this thing today and another thing tomorrow and next month, totally reinventing himself.

The Bible says of God, He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.

So if you ever get to know who God really is, look at me.

You can live with certainty in light of that knowledge till the day you die.

Because that God is that constant.

He's never going to change the rules.

He's what he says, who the Bible reveals him to be, is who he actually is.

It's not complicated.

It's actually very simple.

You just have to come to this point where you say, you know what?

God's ways are higher than my ways, and I have more faith in God than I have in myself.

And so God comes with constancy.

When I think about consistency, I think about you, all the men in the room, all the fathers and husbands in the room, all the single men that want to be husbands and fathers.

The greatest gift you could give your family is to be consistent and constant.

Your children know my dad's going to go to work, my dad's going to come home, my dad's going to be with my mom.

We're going to get through this.

It's like a roof over their head, okay?

Now we have two daughters.

And now when they were little, every night it was the same bedtime ritual.

Mom would go in, mom would read stories, mom would pray, mom would rub back, she'd come out and go, tag team, your turn.

I would go in, I would read stories, I would maybe fight a little bit, wrestle, bounce them off the bed, and my wife would go, don't get them stirred up.

I've got them up asleep.

I was like, leave us alone.

And then I would, daddy would say prayers.

And when our youngest Sophie was about two, every once in a while, not every night, but pretty consistently when she was about two, she'd say, Daddy, sit down on the floor.

And she'd want you to sit down on the floor and stay in the room with her.

The lights were out.

It was time to go to bed, but she wanted to fall asleep with somebody else in the room.

And sometimes she would hang her little hand off the bed.

Her bed ran like this, and you'd sit with your back against the bed, and she would just hang her little hand off you, just reach up and just hold her hand.

And you could tell by holding her hand where she was in the falling asleep process because the it took about 15 minutes for the hand just to go limp, and you were like, Okay, I can turn loose.

Because sometimes you start to turn loose and she'd go, Daddy, are you there?

I'm here, baby.

I'm here.

I am all here.

Now I remember one night in particular, she asked, I could tell she was very tired.

And she asked the first time she said, Daddy, are you awake?

And I said, Babe, Daddy's awake.

You can go to sleep.

Daddy's awake.

About three minutes later, it was like, Daddy, are you?

And I said, Babe, yes, daddy's here.

Daddy's awake.

About a minute later it was just, Daddy, Daddy.

I said, Shh, shh, shh, shh, sh, daddy's here.

Daddy's here.

Now, you may be thinking, what has that got to do with being constant, not temporary?

And because I think about the past year you've had.

Think about it.

I just made notes about all the things we've gone through.

We had record hurricane season.

We had so many hurricanes, we burned through the alphabet and we went into the Greek alphabet.

Wildfires burning up the West Coast, global pandemic, plagues, pestilence, political unrest, human division, racial strife, crooked media that keeps it all ginned up, aging parents, a dad that has dementia, a mom that can't afford to go into extended care, and so she's got to move in with you.

It's easy.

It's easy to look around, like my little friend said at the beginning of our service, it's dark in here.

Or it's easy to look up to heaven and say, Daddy, are you awake?

Here's the good news about the constancy of God who incarnated as a baby and never left.

Here's the good news about that.

The Bible says he never sleeps and he never slumbers.

So whatever you go through, he goes through it with you.

And you have to train your eyes to look and see where God is because he's never gonna leave you nor forsake you.

He's never going to abandon you.

He's never gonna say, you know what, I don't love you.

I don't think I ever did.

And it's time we just we we just separate.

No, no, no.

That's not God.

That's what people say and do.

God is consistently constant.

This is what the Bible says.

Now, why is that a big deal?

It's a big deal for you and me.

It was a big deal of the first century.

So much so that when Jesus was born, there were shepherds out tending to their fields, not far from that.

And the angel of the Lord appeared to them and said, Hey, go check it out.

Luke chapter 2, that my friend read earlier so beautifully says it like this.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

He says, When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.

And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in the manger.

Hear these words.

And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning the child.

And all who heard it wondered what the shepherds told them.

But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart, and the shepherds returned, glorified and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told to them.

Look at me, I'm done.

Miracles never cease.

Amen?

Don't agree so heartily, people.

Look at me.

The Bible doesn't ask you to do things you're not capable of doing.

What the Bible asks you to do as a good shepherd is to basically just go tell people what's been told to you.

You be a witness and you just testify to what you've seen.

Shepherds back in the biblical days were not the smartest people in the world.

They were kind of low on the totem pole.

And these cats are like, hey, we ain't got these groundbreaking careers, but God appears to them.

Because God's no respecter person.

It's like God loves rich people or He loves poor people, or vice versa.

He appears to these shepherds and they come and they see it, and then God says, Here's what I want you to do.

I want you just to go tell everybody what you've seen and testify to what you know.

The Bible says the same thing of you and me.

Because if you're not careful, it's easy to look around 2020 and go, it's dark in here, and you begin to lose hope.

And once you lose hope, right on the heels of that, you begin to lose faith.

And if you begin to lose faith, pretty soon you look at this and you think, is this really real or relevant, or is this kind of an outdated book from a long time ago?

This is as real and relevant and consistently true as it's always been.

We like to have a part of our service, a ritual we do here at Grand Parkway called Passing the Peace, where we have some shepherds that come and they'll light their candles off of this can the Christ candle here on the Advent table.

And then we'll just pass the light all the way back.

And as it passes, I want you to be reminded this is how this all got started.

And look at me.

This is how you continue to permeate the culture.

Let me voice a prayer.

Father, thanks for the reality of the gospel.

Thanks that it comes to us in ways we understand, and it takes things that are unfamiliar and it makes them familiar to us.

You don't ask us to do or be anything that we're not capable of.

This is not for smart people, this is for willing people.

You appeared to shepherds and said, Hey, just tell people what you've seen and what you've heard, and it began to spread.

And they told two people, and they told four people, and that person told one person, and that one person told three people, and then those three people told nine people, and pretty soon the light of the gospel, the glory of God began to spread all over the world.

And so, Lord, just brood over us as we remind ourselves with a visual reminder of how the peace of Christ passes in our day and age.

Take a moment.

Look around.

And listen.

Look around again.

Here's why I ask you to look around.

Simply because the world's not as dark a place as you've been told.

We live in a culture where people prey on fear and they want to stir it up.

Here's why it's not as dark as you've been told.

Two reasons, and we'll be done.

Number one, because of the incarnation.

Because God left heaven and came to earth, took on flesh.

That's the first reason.

The second reason is because you're here.

If you're a Christian, I'm talking to you.

You say, What do you mean?

Early on in his ministry, Jesus would say to his followers, I'm the light of the world.

Towards the end of his ministry, he said to his followers, You're the light of the world.

Because his mission here on earth was finished and he was going back to heaven.

Your mission here on earth continues.

And central to that mission is to spread the light and the love of Christ.

We like to conclude our service with a spoken blessing.

So don't hold your hands out.

I don't want you to pour wax on your neighbors.

Just stand still.

Because you could not make it into his light.

He came into your darkness to be with you, to love you, to change you, to accept you, and to conform you to his image.

So when people see you, they're reminded of him.

This is the essence of the gospel and the incarnation.

Depart now and continue to live out these realities in a dark world that needs your light.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.